Backstage with Salim and Anarkali

The play Mughal-e-Azam has been hugely acclaimed. We meet the duo that portrays the iconic couple on stage

Mohe panghat pe’ is playing on stage and Anarkali, dressed in a white top and red palazzo pants, is rehearsing her dance steps. The director, Feroz Khan, announces that once she finishes her practice, the light check will start. The production team is on its toes to ensure that everything and everyone is in place. In a truly theatre reportage tradition, we meet the actors playing Salim and Anarkali, the iconic lead pair from
Mughal-e-Azam, backstage, in their respective makeup rooms. Anarkali is preening on the third floor and Salim is adding finishing touches to his look on the ground floor. The anxiety and nervous energy for the first show of the day is going to begin at 4 pm, is indeed contagious. It’s a quarter to three.

As we enter her makeup room, 26-year-old Priyanka Barve — Anarkali — disarms us with a warm smile. “I am very happy that people refer to me as Anarkali. I love it,” she announces. Barve is not new to the entertainment industry; she has been a Marathi playback singer and has been singing professionally since she was 17. “I come from a musical family. Everyone is involved with music and poetry,” says the Pune-bred actress, who has learnt kathak for three years. “Dance was a challenge for me. I had to dance and sing at the same time. It was a little worrying whether I’d be able to do it or not, because when you sing and dance, your breath needs to be controlled. But I am glad that I tried and was able to pull it off,” Barve says. She met Feroz Khan through executive producer Sanjay Dawra, while Khan was looking for his Anarkali. “I didn’t know about the auditions. Sanjay Dawra suggested my name to Sir (Khan) and then the meeting happened. Sir had already done a little research about me. He asked me to sing a song from
Mughal-e-Azam and I sang “Pyar kiya toh darna kya”. He liked it very much. It was destined to happen,” she says gleefully.

Back on the ground floor, Salim’s green room is quieter as compared to Anarkali’s. Twenty-eight-year-old Dhanveer Singh from Patiala is also an RJ. “Actually, this is a very new world for me. I am from a rural background. I’m the only post-graduate from my family; the only one who opted for this career,” says Singh. He landed in Mumbai two-and-ahalf ago years back and was looking for acting opportunities when he got a call from casting director Mukesh Chhabra, famous for working on films Anurag Kashyap’s films. “I got a call from Mukesh Chhabra’s office and they said that there’s an audition for a play. I was very relaxed and had no idea about the scale of the play. I went there, audition hua and they asked to me to speak in Urdu. Since I have done my Masters in Urdu, I spoke some dialogues from an Urdu play that I acted in at college. After 15 days they called me and said that Feroz Sir wants me to meet me,” Singh explains.

Talking the walk

Landing the role was not the end of a struggle for the duo; it was the beginning of a process, according to Barve. Since August 2016, after bagging their roles, their daily regimen includes yoga, vocal training and Urdu diction classes (for Barve, it included dancing and singing practice as well). Singh was and is still balancing his radio career by recording for his show from Mumbai amidst the hectic rehearsal routine. “Another challenge for me was to get the Urdu diction right. Even though I have learnt ghazal, the lehaz and nazakat in the language had to be perfected. Our Urdu coach, Kamal Ahmed, worked really hard with us,” she says. Urdu wasn’t a cakewalk for Singh either, even though he is a post-graduate in the language; he had lost touch with its nuances. Since the play hit the stage, celebrities and well-known artistes have been showering compliments for its stellar production and acting prowess. Surprisingly, both the actors were asked to interpret the iconic characters in their own way and not imitate the legendary actors from Bollywood classic of the same name: Dilip Kumar and Madhubala. Speaking about the best compliment she received, Barve says, “Shankarji (Shankar Mahadevan) had come with his family. He’s my idol. And he said, ‘I would like to give all the credit to Feroz Sir, but apart from that I think Priyanka Barve was the show stopper. She owned the show and was outstanding.’ That made my day.” For Singh, it wasn’t a compliment but a gesture from Khan that touched his heart. “After my first show, Feroz Sir came and hugged me. Everybody gave me so many compliments, but the hug from him was the best compliment I could have received,” he says. Refreshingly, despite all the accolades, the actors are not thinking of Bollywood as the next natural step. Barve says that she would love to do playback signing for a Hindi movie and Singh is taking each day as it comes. According to Singh, you cannot plan opportunities: They’ll come as and when they have to. Sounds like a plan.

█ It was a little worrying because when you sing and dance, your breath needs to be controlled. But I am glad that I tried and was able to pull it off

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